Why Now: Trey Parker and Matt Stone Reveal a Problem

Remember these guys? Trey Parker and Matt Stone started making South Park movies and series at a time when their "normal pace" was never considered "going too far." While they were perhaps judged for being outrageous in their limitless jabs at celebrities and the earliest forms of the woke mindset, no one ever thought to "cancel" them.

Which brings up an interesting question: Why now? As in, why do we, all of a sudden, feel the need to cancel the voices of those who criticize and disagree with popular opinions? The creators of South Park have remained the same outliers throughout the years - creating commentary about the political, cultural, and social strata as they saw it. But, even as the cultural times have shifted around them, no one has thought to cancel them or that they "shouldn't have a voice" - at least not yet.

So, again, why now? If they haven't changed, and the cultural narrative around them has changed to a near-complete reversal, why aren't people seeing the shifting narrative as the unhealthy part of that equation, rather than their persistent, unaltered commentary?

I have a theory: Perhaps the only reason they haven't been canceled is because there's still an audience out there. Perhaps there are still enough of us that believe in the old ways of dialoguing, but just don't feel the need to voice it often, or at all. Or, better yet, perhaps their entire platform is based on the need for the ridicule, the boycotting, the calls for their professional heads!

I guess now, even while we must watch our friends and family get swallowed up in the shifting cultural imperatives, the onus is on us - the steadfast and vocal few - to be aware of how our audience sees our unwavering spirit in the changing tides. Because those compliant little minions carrying the torch of their given message are likely too busy laboring within the agenda to see that phases happen in cycles. And this current phase, like all that have preceded it, is not robust enough to live beyond the inevitable close of that cycle.

Being on the right side of history means being reticent enough to live it out.

I think I, like many of my politically silent friends, am a reasonable person walking through an increasingly unreasonable political and social landscape. I get validation for this all the time when more people tell me they agree with me in my DMs than those who disagree with me in the public comments.

What does that tell you? Well, it tells me that, while there are still plenty of people who disagree with the direction things are headed these days, more and more people are too afraid to say anything about it publicly for fear of a very real possibility of being ostracized. Hell, they're watching it happen to me as I post about losing contact with people for literally nothing more than my opinions. Opinions, by the way, that will neither change nor become muted over time.

This is a problem. Not for me, because I know I have remained the same as others have changed around me, and yet have decided they can no longer tolerate me. That's fine. I still love them, and forgive them because they can't see the forest for the trees. But for others - those too scared of losing their friends - it is definitely a problem. We should never be so afraid of who we are that we refrain from expressing ourselves just to appease those too weak to stand their ground in intermittent cultural chaos. Those strong enough to keep hold of their will should always refuse to change with the shortsighted, flighty, baseless, woke memo of the day.

You may have heard of some people who’ve done this in the staunchest and most public examples of reprisals:

James Damore was fired for authoring a memo at Google discussing biological differences between men and women in the context of the tech industry.

Curt Schilling, former MLB pitcher and ESPN analyst, was fired for social media posts including memes and comments criticizing transgender bathroom policies and Islamic extremism - neither of which had anything to do with his abilities as a sports analyst.

Milo Yiannopoulos lost his book deal, and was forced to resigned from his position at Breitbart for criticizing liberal ideologies, including feminism, political correctness, and immigration.

Tucker Carlson has been fired, faced advertiser boycotts, targeted for cancelation, and accused of promoting white nationalism and xenophobia, all for taking a conservative stance on immigration, race, and cultural issues.

The former Muslim, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, now an outspoken critic of Islam, has been accused of promoting Islamophobia, faced protests, disinvitations from speaking engagements at universities, and numerous threats for her strong critiques of Islamic extremism and practices.

For a merely perceived association with conservative values and attending a church alleged to have anti-LGBTQ+ beliefs, as well as not publicly aligning with progressive political causes, Chris Pratt faced enormous online backlash, with calls to "cancel" him and his movies.

In an extremely long and public example, Jordan Peterson would have long been driven from the campus over criticism of progressive ideologies, particularly in opposition to compelled speech related to gender pronouns and political correctness in academia, if not for his contracted tenure in the university system. He is still fighting a years-long legal battle with the Canadian psychological community over their call for his removal as a certified psychologist.

The list goes on and on and around the corner and down the street. Laura Loomer (canceled for her views on Islam, immigration, and social media censorship), Candace Owens (black commentator canceled for anti-BLM views), Rosanne Barr (canceled for a tweet comparing a former Obama advisor to an ape), Gina Carano (critiques of mask mandates), Ben Shapiro (his views on gender, race, and free speech)...

The common vein: an opinion shared - regardless of its application to doing one's job - is sufficient grounds for their career to end (forgetting, of course, that their opinions are just as protected as those of the people canceling them).

Do you see the problem here? There's a lot to unpack when it first hits the news, but the pattern is plain and simple. Our Constitutional rights are being taken away for speaking our minds - so long as that commentary goes against the liberal narrative.

The list of people who have had calls for their personal labels to be canceled not only follows an eerily similar pattern of simply not being liberal. It also showcases a host of people who are only still in the public light because they are too wealthy to be crushed under the weight of social pressure. This says all that it needs to say about those who not longer have their jobs without having made a public spectacle. What of them? What of the families they can no longer feed because they weren’t wealthy enough to live out the storm?

Oddly enough, the targets of these campaigns are not making these same calls for cancellation against the liberals seeking their demise. And they aren't changing their stance, either. Why is that? Could it be that they are simply secure enough in their beliefs that they don't need to silence their opposition? Could it be that they know their argument is strong enough on its own merits that there is no need to walk it back?

On the other hand, what are these progressives so afraid of? They are enjoying the exact same freedom to express themselves as their opposition. The difference is that they are being increasingly cornered by facts that fly in the face of their claims, and so the only thing left to do is cover their ears and go, "La la la la la..." to drown out the sensical, logical, very reasonable and time-tested rationale that has worked just fine throughout generations at keeping reasonable debate perfectly acceptable.

What's worse, though, is that this dialectic dichotomy has done so much more harm than good in forcing people to choose sides. That's where the train derails for me. Where once we were able to simply disagree, now we are labeled enemies of the state by people who can't even provide facts to defend their claims. And they've done such a good job at creating this divisive dynamic that friends, family, and other relationships we've enjoyed for decades are now ghosting those pesky, opinionated voices altogether.

It's time we return to making sense and being friends again. Each one of us has a million opinions. We need to stop looking at people as the whole and complete objects of the one opinion we disagree with. We didn't used to do that. Never in our past have we needed to pick a camp and oust the opposition.

So, why now? If we ask ourselves that question, the answer will free us to all to be friends again.

Image by Charles Sykes/AP.